I was always alone, but then I met you
by lizzie bobizzy
Summary: Collection of fics based on Akirai week prompts. Prompt: Curses/Fears. "I'm not necessary," said Mirai. "Don't say that!" Akihito said angrily. "How could you even think of leaving me again when...when you know how I feel about you." In which Mirai knows she's a monster who doesn't deserve to be with anyone, and Akihito won't be pushed away that easily.


**prompt:** Curses/Fears

* * *

><p>She was doing it again. Akihito rolled his eyes mentally.<p>

Akihito sighed. It was a soft, imperceptible sigh, but Mirai still took the opportunity to snap at him, "Would you please be quiet?"

Akihito sighed even louder, a deliberate, forced exhalation.

Mirai rolled her eyes.

"What?" Akihito asked waspishly. "I'm not allowed to sigh anymore, is that it? Well, let me tell you up front and center, there are many lengths I'd be willing to go to for a bespectacled beauty—sacrificing my life being one of them, as my past actions have clearly indicated—but all the feminine wiles in the world won't make me give up sighing, you cruel, greedy woman."

Mirai bit her lip hard to keep from giggling. Encouraging Akihito was like bleeding in a pond full of piranhas—and, besides, she was trying to be _mad_ at him. Still a tremor wracked her spine as she tried to hold her laughter in and keep a straight face.

"I don't care!" Mirai sniffed. She whipped out her cell phone and began typing furiously, muttering incomprehensibly to herself. Akihito strained his ears. "…despicable…breathes too loudly…the worst…"

"Hey!" Akihito said, mildly alarmed.

Mirai snapped her phone shut coolly. "Could you please stop breathing _so loudly_, senpai?—Better yet: stop. breathing."

"Entirely?" Akihito asked, bemused now.

Mirai nodded furiously.

She was a strange one, Akihito thought fondly, and she lacked a grain of common sense. Somehow he didn't seem to mind.

They were alone in the clubroom, sitting at opposite ends of the table. Moving with slow purpose, he pushed his chair back from the table, making an obnoxious screeching noise. He walked leisurely towards Mirai, whose eyes widened.

He placed both hands on the back of her chair, caging her in, and leaned down.

Leaned even closer. Mirai squirmed, obviously uncomfortable, but with nowhere to escape.

"I know what you're doing," he said softly, dangerously.

"Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-what?"

Akihito let out a small laugh. "That wasn't very convincing of your innocence, Kuriyama-san."

Mirai flushed. He was using the most formal way possible to address her, but when he said it like…_that_, he somehow turned her last name into an intimate secret between the two of them. Her fingers clenched with the urge to snatch her glasses and clean them, but Akihito was too close to her to avoid brushing up against his various parts while doing so, so she refrained.

Mirai looked to the side, unable to bear the amber gaze that always seemed to see right through all her blustering and her façade. "I really don't know what you're talking about," she said quietly. Calmly.

Akihito laughed again, louder this time, a slow, honeyed chuckle, and Mirai was ashamed of the stutter in her heartbeat at the sound. Since when had she gotten so weak around him? She had started out trying to _kill_ him, damn it.

"Kuriyama-san, this is the fifth time you've tried to pull this on me."

"So?" she asked, her lips set in a mulish pout that he found adorable. "With your thick skull, it should take twice as many times to get through to you."

"This is the fifth time. In _two days._ By god, you're the most stubborn, persistent person I've ever met." This was said with relish, rather than the expected irritation.

"That's because you haven't had the misfortune of meeting yourself," Mirai retorted. _This_, on the other hand, was said with clear irritation.

Akihito continued on as if he hadn't heard, using one hand to tip up her chin. "I know exactly what you're doing, idiot," he said in the gentle voice that Mirai absolutely _hated_, and she absolutely _did not_ tremble at his touch. "I thought you learned after the first time, dummy. I'm not going anywhere—no matter how you snap at me unreasonably or try to push me away."

Mirai's bottom lip trembled, and Akihito felt a pit drop in his stomach. "You should!" she said angrily. "You should stay away from me. I'm dangerous!"

Akihito laughed. He couldn't help it. If only she could see herself, pink-haired and a full head shorter than he, growling at him like a little kitten, trying to convince him—the immortal half-demon—that _she_ was the dangerous one.

Mirai bristled at his amusement. "It's _not_ funny," she practically snarled. "Even the strongest spirit world warriors are afraid of me. I'm _cursed_, senpai."

"Preaching to the choir, sweetheart. Besides, a hint of danger only adds to the appeal of a bespectacled—"

Mirai shoved at Akihito's chest so he stumbled backwards a couple of steps. "You're not taking this seriously!" she shouted, then ran past him.

"Wha—?"Akihito's heart dropped to his stomach. He lunged and grabbed the edge of Mirai's sleeve, stretching it as he kept her from fleeing. She didn't try to tug her arm out of his grasp, didn't turn around, didn't do anything except stand with her back ramrod straight, facing away from him. "Hey," he said gently. "Look at me."

But she didn't move, and Akihito blanched when he saw her shoulders quiver, and he took two great steps to reach her quickly, grab her by the shoulders, and turn her around to face him. When he saw the tear tracks down her cheeks, he felt sick, like he always did when she was unhappy; here was the one person in the world who should always be happy—he didn't know why felt that way; it was just how the world _was._

So he gathered her up in his arms, coaxing softly, "Hey, stop that, will you?" and he brushed away tears with his thumbs.

Mirai stayed stiff in his embrace, caught between the desire to relax into him and the desire to wrench away and stay away _for his own sake_, the idiot. She trembled in his arms, and his heart twisted at the tiny, fragile motion. She pulled away to look at him, and his arms dropped, and he missed her soft warmth immediately.

Mirai eyed Akihito warily. She couldn't predict anything with this guy. "Why do you stay with me?" she asked in frustration finally. "I'm not—not safe to be around, and if I'm mean to you, it's really for your own good. I'm fine being alone"—Mirai jutted her chin up—"and you have other friends who care about you. I'm not necessary."

"Don't say that!" Mirai's head jerked, and she found Akihito staring angrily at her, and he stepped forward and grabbed her forearm tightly. "You're _not_ unnecessary. How could you even _think_ of leaving me_ again_ when you know…" Akihito swallowed and looked away, and finally Mirai could escape his mesmerizing gaze. "When you know how I feel about you," he said quietly.

"It's for your own good!" Mirai screamed, and she crumpled in on herself, and Akihito reached for her, but spoke coldly to stave him off. "You know…you know I feel the same way, but I'm a _monster_. We can't be together, and whenever you try…it hurts."

Akihito clenched his jaw. "You better be prepared for a world of hurt then. I like you"—Mirai's soft inhalation of surprise did not escape Akihito's notice, and he blushed slightly—"and I'm never going to give up. I'm a monster too, and if you deserve to be alone, then so do I. But I don't think either of us should have to be that way."

"It's not the same—no, you know it's not," she said when Akihito tried to interrupt. "Yours is a part of you that doesn't come out if you don't want it to. Mine is a double-edged sword that I use frequently in everyday life—senpai, I've already killed you a couple of times with it already. You don't have to be alone—so many people care about you—"

"They care about you too! Mitsuki doesn't just sadistically and mercilessly tease anyone, you know? _I _care about you. Don't I matter?"

"Of you course you do," Mirai began to say, but Akihito interlaced the fingers on his left hand with those on her right.

He closed his eyes, reveling in the feeling of the bandages around her hand against his palm. "I love"—Mirai found herself imagining Akihito might be saying "I love you" and was both disappointed and relieved when he didn't—"your blood-manipulation ability," he said in a shaky voice.

Mirai scolded herself mentally for even imagining that Akihito might have been confessing in the midst of their argument.

He separated their palms and brought hers to his mouth. "I love that it protects you, that it saved you from near death," he said and kissed her bandages so softly it tickled her palm. "Most of all, I love that it brought you to me."

"It's also the reason I spent the first half of our relationship trying to kill you!" Mirai laughed waterly.

Akihito bowed with a flourish, still clutching Mirai's right hand. "Don't you know I'd suffer anything to be in the presence of a bespectacled beauty?" he murmured before bending over her hand and kissing it.

Mirai rolled her eyes and finally didn't resist when Akihito swept her into his arms. "Please," he said seriously into the hair at her temple. "Just stop trying to push me away. Life is meaningless without you in it."

Mirai blushed furiously. It wasn't fair how he could so easily switch from being outrageous to—to being romantic, without knowing it. She shoved at Akihito's chest weakly, but he only gripped her tighter.

"You're an idiot," she complained, "and you're holding me too tight."

"If I don't do this, you'll run away," he said stubbornly. "And besides—I like touching you. And you like it, don't you?"

"N-n-n-n-n-n-not really!" Mirai shouted, and Akihito grinned.

"That wasn't very convincing, Kuriyama-san," he said before tipping up her chin and kissing her, and Mirai made a soft sound of surprise.

They both stilled for a moment, and then Akihito began kissing her softly. He entangled one hand in her hair and kept one wrapped tightly around her, keeping her close to him. He kissed her closed-mouthed and gently, approaching her slowly as one might with a small, stray animal. He had wanted to romance her before kissing her and had surprised himself by kissing her, but where Mirai was concerned, everything was unpredictable. Worry over her and stress at the thought that she might be alive but alone ate at his willpower until he couldn't resist the siren call of her lush mouth.

Mirai put her hands on his shoulder and leaned up on her toes to press even closer to her. Emboldened by her encouragement he began to move his lips across hers in different directions, slanting his mouth across hers. He took her bottom lip in between his gently and sucked on it, and all of a sudden it was too much for Mirai, who had forgotten to breathe through her nose and ran out of air. She pulled away panting, annoyed that Akihito's breathing was pretty normal.

Akihito bent down and touched his forehead to Mirai's. "Did you like that?" he asked, and Mirai thought she detected a bit of uncertainty in his voice.

Mirai growled and bashed her forehead against his, and Akihito let out a yelp and backed away from Mirai, finally letting her go. (No, she did not miss his arms around her.)

While Akihito was clutching his forehead in pain—Mirai refused to feel guilty; it had been a gentle love tap, and he was making a big deal of things as usual—Mirai took the time to walk out of the door of the club room.

"I h-h-h-h-h-hated that!" she declared. "Looks like we're going to need to practice some more," she said, and she dramatically closed the club room door behind her.

Silence. Then, Mirai could faintly hear a "Kuriyama-san!?" and the crash of books falling as Akihito scrambled to catch up to her. "W-w-would you like to elaborate on what you just said?" Akihito asked frantically. "For example, what earliest time would be convenient for you for this practice?"

Mirai rolled her eyes and slapped his arm gently. "Pervert!" she chided.

Akhito was too busy protesting the "inappropriate label, considering his tastes were highly selective and specific to bespectacled beauties," to notice her smile.


End file.
